1 Nephi 4-6: The Wilderness

 As with posts about utopias, I am posting excerpts from my Book of Mormon from the Nineteenth Century Viewpoint blog. 

I believe that readers can best understand and appreciate The Book of Mormon by examining it from the perspective of nineteenth-century readers. What questions were they asking? What religious problems concerned them? 

1 Nephi 4-6: The Wilderness

Nineteenth-century readers would have reacted positively to the idea of wilderness as freedom. This perspective is often applied only to white settlers in North America--and Manifest Destiny, articulated in 1845, was used to justify the practice of white settlers steadily moving west. However, lots and lots of people—including escaped ex-slaves—also moved west. Irish immigrants, Blacks, and displaced Native Americans occupied the fringes of society as well as a number of religious groups. 

It helps to realize that those “fringes”--what was labeled “the West”--kept moving. At one point in the 1800s, “the West” was western New York and Ohio. It then became the Mississippi River Valley and then what we now refer to as the Mid-West. (California became a self-described utopia and sophisticated “other” coast fairly early on—though it was also perceived as part of “the West.”) 

The Gold Rush, naturally, contributed to the idea that traveling into the West equaled a new start, but that metaphor impacted North American pioneering as early as the Mayflower (possibly earlier, if one goes back to the Vikings). It links to the Puritan idea of “exodus” from a corrupt society. Methodist preachers--circuit riders--were immensely popular in the nineteenth century while their stable, elite, (well) paid, stationary counterparts on the east coast were perceived as missing the plot. 

Consequently, nineteenth-century readers would likely have reacted positively to Lehi’s decision to move his family away from perceived urban corruption into a potentially dangerous wilderness. And the thread of violence that inhabits these chapters would have made more sense to nineteenth-century readers than it often does to modern readers. The “Wild” West was truly “Wild” in some cases and the attitude “better left alone to take care of themselves” from state and Federal governments (pre-Civil War) was prevalent.  

However, the wilderness was not embraced because it was nice or cute. Though indigenous people and trackers and traders saw the wilderness as an approachable and useful, many North American newcomers--when faced with so much risk--demonstrated a more medieval than Enlightened mindset, namely: 

One goes into the Wilderness and dies heroically (and/or becomes a hermit--see Saint Anthony--and dies sacrificially) or one goes into the Wilderness and fights off all contenders as part of a social order. 

The tensions here between wilderness as freedom and wilderness as anarchy personified--wilderness as necessary refuge and wilderness as wholly threatening and dangerous exile--as well as the tensions between individuality and organized leadership, pacifism and violence--continue through The Book of Mormon. Nineteenth-century readers could relate. 

Problems with Utopias: Problem of Isolation

Over the next year or so, I will be posting now and again from my "sub-blogs." 

The post here is from the associated blog, Problems with Utopias.

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It is typical of utopia novels/tracts to start with "I met a man who told me about..." similar to Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner."

More's Utopia, for instance, is described by a traveler, Raphael, who claims the place was already populated when a group of Romans and Egyptians arrived there in a shipwreck. The resulting perfection is a combination of those cultures. James Hilton's Shangri-la is described by one man to another man based on the first man's encounter with Conway (the Ronald Colman character in the 1937 movie). Shangri-la is in the mountains and only reached by Conway and his companions when their plane is hijacked. 

The implication is that these places exist within the real world but are difficult to reach. Only the occasional survivor or visitor will find a way to pass on the story. 

The problem is that in reality, stuff and people leak out. Why wouldn't Utopia's fisherman keep sailing? Why wouldn't Herland's citizens up and leave? George Mallory isn't the only one who wanted to climb a mountain because it was there.

In fairness, Gilman's women are infinitely practical, which is a welcome change from rampaging idealism, but human nature is not infinitely practical, male or female. Road trips and rituals like Rumspringa exist for a reason. Good grief, Gilman got a divorce and hauled herself and a child all the way across the country to California--why wouldn't her women do the same? For that matter, at age 25, I drove cross-country in a non-air-conditioned Dodge Colt (stick shift) in the summer with a cat by myself. I would never do that now! (People get more risk-adverse as they age.) 

Even during Japan's most extreme isolationist period, people still knew it was there and eventually showed up in a "here we are; what are you going to do now?" way. (And, yes, people did leave, even if they did so partly unintentionally. Courtesy of Eugene, see John Manjiro, "whose biography would barely be believable as fiction.")

In addition, one of the most fascinating revelations of archeological digs is how much people in the past got around. Goods from Asia show up in medieval England. Folks from England show up in the Mediterranean world.

Not to forget, during the nineteenth century, that time of no-holds-barred nationalism, the attempt by antiquarians to discover the "pure" past of a nation ended in failure. German fairy tales weren't German--for one, a lot of them were French. 

And so on.

Isolation is necessary to utopias. Mobile people undermine utopias since (1) restless people indicate that people care about more things than their immediate "needs" (sorry, Marx); (2) if mobile people can leave, other mobile people can arrive, and there goes the perfectly structured society. 

Star Trek tackled this problem in several ways (setting aside the utopian ideals of the show itself). TOS tackled it philosophically: How can you thrive if you are too happy? TNG tackled it, to my mind, somewhat more realistically. In "Masterpiece Society," the engineers on the planet are too excited about Enterprise technology to give it up. Now we see the cost of not being part of a space-faring community! No, thanks!

Welcome to human nature.